Fighting continues in Palestinian refugee camp
Sporadic fighting between Lebanese troops and al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants continued today in a northern Palestinian refugee camp as police, stepping up raids nationwide on suspected militant hideouts, made 13 more arrests.
In eastern Lebanon, police arrested a Syrian man with Lebanese citizenship after raiding his apartment in the village of Ghazzeh.
Security officials said troops confiscated detonators and timers from the apartment. An army raid on a suspected militant hideout, also in eastern Lebanon, uncovered vehicles rigged with explosives that were hidden in a garage with several rockets.
Authorities separately arrested 12 Iraqi nationals at the Masnaa Lebanon-Syria border crossing in the eastern Bekaa Valley after they crossed in from Syria. They said the men carried forged foreign passports, but it was not immediately clear whether they were related to Fatah Islam militants.
Security officials said today that the number of Fatah Islam suspects now in custody was 32. They were arrested in raids in the past three weeks, most in the northern port city of Tripoli, near the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, but some also in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Tensions have been high since fighting broke out on May 20 between the army and Fatah Islam militants in Nahr el-Bared. There also have been clashes at the Ein el-Hilweh camp in the south, and several bombings in the Beirut area sparked fears of spreading chaos.
A bomb blast in an industrial area in Zouk Mousbeh, 12 miles north of Beirut, near the town of Jounieh in the country’s Christian heartland, killed one man and wounded three.
At least two people have been killed and 40 wounded in a string of bomb blasts since May 20.
Nahr el-Bared clashes resumed today as the Lebanese army pounded militants hiding in the camp. Witnesses reported intermittent army shelling of the camp, as well as occasional gunfire.
The army later said in a statement it was “gradually taking control of the terrorists’ positions” in Nahr el-Bared to end this “abnormal phenomenon ... imposed on Lebanon.” The statement did not say how many militant positions were overtaken so far.
Yesterday, Fatah Islam snipers in Nahr el-Bared killed a soldier and attacked an armoured personnel carrier, wounding three other soldiers.
More than 120 people, including at least 60 Fatah Islam militants, 46 soldiers and 20 civilians, have been reported killed in the fighting – the worst internal violence in Lebanon since the 1975-90 civil war.
Recent civilian casualties are not known because the camp has been closed to journalists and aid workers for days. Thousands of Palestinians remain trapped inside.
The US and Arab allies have been rushing military supplies to help strengthen the Lebanese army for a possible full-out assault on the militants, who have vowed to fight to the death.
US defence department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the US had completed 21 airlifts to provide ammunition to Lebanon, and that the airport team that unloaded the planes has left.
The airlifts have drawn criticism from the militant group Hezbollah, the Lebanese government’s top opponent, whose leader warned Lebanon was being dragged into a US war against al-Qaida that would destabilise the country.
Lebanon is home to 400,000 Palestinians, who are packed into impoverished camps that have become fertile ground for groups such as Fatah Islam, despite the fact that most mainstream Palestinians oppose them.
